


Maintenance

by Unicron



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Beast Wars
Genre: BW Rarepair Week 2018, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 10:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16532903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unicron/pseuds/Unicron
Summary: With solvent running low the Maximals have to groom using water. The cats amongst them are less than pleased at this development.





	Maintenance

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I missed the first day of the week I scheduled. I'll try to revisit the Sunday prompt sometime this week

Grooming wasn’t something most Maximals put much thought into. Solvent showers were standard in both private households and military bases and if an individual couldn’t afford the luxury of their own oil bath there were plenty public ones in towns and cities one could visit. Maximals working on ships might have to put some thought into their habits, mostly to make sure they removed any alien matter while conserving solvent. Not that conservation was anything new to Maximals, they were still living with Energon rations that never left following the Great Warr after all.  

When the Axalon crashed, however, Cheetor became painfully aware of his grooming habits. For the first time in his life Energon was plentiful. Sure they had to refine it and there was danger in the process, but Cheetor would take carefully extracting a strain of Energon over going to berth with an empty fuel tank. The plentiful nature of Energon only made conserving solvent all the more obvious. Showers were limited to a cycle where they would attempt to scrub whatever they could from their root mode. Even then after the first solar cycle Optimus Primal ordered further conservation by converting their shower into a solvent bath that would be changed once a deca-cycle. Primal also ordered the Maximals start to clean their beast modes using water, the same way the creatures they took their modes from did. There were grumblings from the entire crew but after a few tries everyone conceited that as long as they only cleaned their altmodes with water they wouldn’t rust so it was doable.

Cheetor couldn’t stand it though.

The water would soak his fur and take forever to let him dry off after the fact. While Rattrap’s fine fur and Airazor’s feathers had already dried and allowed them to return to base mode Cheetor would just sit in front of the Axalon’s power converter hoping the heat would help dry him just a little faster. Then when he finally was dry the fur would frizz to the point he knew it was best to avoid the others lest he be the tail end of jokes. So ultimately Cheetor turned to his beast mode for answers.

Cats of all sizes were known for self-grooming, why couldn’t a cat-bot do the same? The answer, he found, was areas he couldn’t reach. The base of his neck had caked on mud he couldn’t manage to reach and while his glossa was useful it couldn’t manage to reach his protoform wherever there were openings to it. Still it was better than other options so he kept it up and hoped no one would mention the areas he was having issues with. At least that was his plan until an afternoon off scouting had him exploring a bit of forest for a place to take a nap.

Cheetor heard movement coming from behind a tree and pounced, the brief moment before making contact allowing Cheetor to imagine pinning a Predacon and becoming the hero of the Axalon as a result. “Little Cat!”

“Oh Tigatron,” Cheetor replied to his friend not bothering to move off of the now-pinned tiger, “Sorry I thought you were a Predacon.”

“And I thought you were a predator,” Tigatron replied before licking the forehead of Cheetor’s alt. “It’s so hard to find somewhere private to groom.”

Cheetor rolled off of Tigatron and onto the jungle floor next to him, “Then when you do its hard to do it solo,” Cheetor added.

“The tiger I used to travel with would get my neck sometimes,” Tigatron said. “It was nice. The other ones don’t trust me enough to do it though.”

“Yeah the cheetahs never trust me either.” Cheetor sat on his hind paws for a moment before pushing himself closer to Tigatron and playfully nipping at the base of the tiger's neck before letting his glossa hang to remove layers of dust. Tigatron purred appreciatively as Cheetor moved, and soon Cheetor found himself curling next to the mech as Tigatron return the favor. The duo moved slowly as they continued to groom until Cheetor felt truly clean for the first time since the crash.


End file.
